


After the Storm

by RiRiMania1335



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Future AU, Insecure Keith, M/M, Post-Defeat of Zarkon, angsty keith, homesick Lance, they go back to Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:56:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiRiMania1335/pseuds/RiRiMania1335
Summary: Zarkon has been defeated, the Galra empire has fallen, the universe is safe. They can finally go home. But Keith isn’t as excited as everyone else.





	

“It’s over. It’s finally over.” Shiro sighed in relief, pulling off his helmet for the final time. 

“Well done, paladins.” Allura congratulated as the five paladins of voltron left their hangers. “You’ve done it. You’ve defeated Zarkon. The universe no longer has to fear his tyrannical reign. And it is all thanks to you five young Earthlings.” 

Pidge stood, surrounded by her father and brother. “Does that mean we can finally go home?” She asked, pouting up at her family. 

Coran pulled at his mustache, “Theoretically, yes. With the Galra all defeated, there are no more imminent threats to the universe. There is no more need for Voltron.” He looked back to Allura with a questioning eyebrow. 

“Indeed, we can open up a wormhole to take you all back to your galaxy, back to your home planet. I’m sure you all have missed your families very much. I can definitely understand that.” Her eyes averted to the floor with a sad smile, “Paladins, gather your belongings. We are setting a course for Earth.” 

Lance practically jumped with joy. They were finally going to go back home. They were finally going to be back on Earth, with blue skies, white clouds, and read edible food. He couldn't wait. He missed his parents, his brothers and his sisters and all of his extended family. He missed his bed and, dare he admit, he missed school as well. 

Keith, on the other hand, was not quite as thrilled. He’d grown fond of Voltron, he’d grown fond of his teammates, his friends. His boyfriend, in particular. He had finally, finally, managed a mutual feelings relationship with Lance McClain. But what if Lance only returned his feelings because he was there? Because there was no one else for him to date in the blackest depths of the universe. Because humanity was familiar and endearing. Surely, back on a planet with billions of other humans, Lance would be able to find someone else, someone better. 

The red paladin couldn't exactly say he missed Earth. If anything, he dreaded this day. He dreaded their return to Earth. Because that meant more weeks, more years of solitude holed up in the desert. And sure, now Shiro was saved. But he was a grown man, likely with his own life to lead. Surely he wouldn't stay with Keith for very long, if he'd stay at all. Leaving Keith ultimately alone once again. 

The castle had become his home. He felt comfortable, he felt safe. Most of all, he felt needed. He felt like there was a place for him, he felt that he had a purpose. Pilot the red lion, form voltron, save the universe. He had spent the past however long it had been carrying out these tasks. He trained daily, he learned how to work with others. He saved the universe. And now he will go back to Earth and be nothing but Keith Kogane - the isolated delinquent. 

Lazily, he strolled back to his quarters, stumbling into his room and taking a seat on his bed. The bed he had come to find surprising comfortable. The bed where Lance comforted him on his worst of nights. The bed where Shiro came to reminisce with him about the good old days. The bed where he confessed his well concealed feelings to Lance and ushered their relationship. So much had happened, so many fond memories took place in the castle. He wasn't ready to give it up yet. 

He didn't have much. Mainly the clothes on his back and a few souvenirs from their many missions on the hundreds of planets they visited. Shoving it all into a small bag, he quickly threw on his cropped jacket and said goodbye to the room one last time. It was the hardest goodbye he’d ever had to say. 

Lance reunited with him back in the sitting room, plopping down beside him on the couch and sliding a casual arm down his thigh, stopping slightly above his knee. He turned to peck his boyfriend affectionately on the cheek. “I’m so happy we are finally going home.” Lance smiled, his voice roughly an octave too high. 

They defined home very differently. “Yeah. It's been, what, a few years.” Keith tried to keep his responses neutral. He certainly didn't want Lance to know he wasn't excited. But he also wasn't going to pretend that he was. 

“Who knows. Time is different out here in space. For all we know, all this time out in space might have just been a regular Earth day.” Lance mused. 

This prompted a small laugh from Keith, “I’m pretty sure we've been gone for more than just 24 hours, Lance.” Keith smiled back, empty behind the eyes. 

Lance’s returned smile shined brighter than all the stars they'd seen. Something about the pull of his lips and the high elevation of his cheek bones made Keith’s heart skip a beat. “You never know.” He laughed back, jabbing a playful elbow into Keith’s ribs. “What are you going to do when we get back.”

Keith felt an arrow to the chest. What are  _ you _ going to do? Is that meant to imply that whatever it is, Keith would be doing it alone. He was right. Their relationship was over the second they stepped off the ship. He had to make the most of it while he still could. At least he’d have the fond memories to look back on while he sat alone in the middle of the desert. “I don't know. Probably just go back to my place and crash.” He shrugged, leaning in closer to Lance and resting his head on his chest. 

“What, you’re going to go back to being boring old Keith. No way man.” Lance rebutted. He turned his face away and Keith watched as his already dark cheeks burned with blush, “I mean, we’ve been together for a while now. It might be about time that you meet my parents.” Keith felt his heart leap into his throat. So Lance did want to keep the relationship. That was at least a good sign. One less thing to worry about. 

But it only sparked a plethora of new things to worry about. Would Lance want to move out to the desert with him? Would he expect Keith to move in with him, and his graciously large family he’d heard so much about? Would they get their own place together? Does Lance intend to go back to the Garrison? So many more questions, so many new things to be worried about. “Meet your parents?” Keith said softly, a slight crack in his voice. 

“Yeah, you know. My mom, my dad, my abuela. My little brothers and sisters. My whole family.” Lance replied enthusiastically. “You’ll have to liven up your personality, though. We are a pretty lively bunch.” He threw his legs on top of Keith's and wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss.

Keith didn't resist, rather he let Lance drape all over him. He let Lance pull on his hair and nibble at the lobes of his ears. He allowed Lance to just do as he pleased. Because it was a lot easier than listening him to beg and whine. “Lance, I don't really know how to liven up.” He confessed. 

Lance laughed, his booming guffaw directed towards Keith’s ear and Keith winced when the sound shook his ear drum. “Sure you do. You just have to be talkative. And smile more often.” The look in Lance's eyes was genuine as he tugged at the corners of Keith’s mouth. 

Keith couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle at the way Lance’s cold hands tickled the skin of his cheeks. “Oh is that all.” He replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes and taking one of Lance’s hand in his own. 

This was perfect. Looking deeply into each other’s arms. Limbs entangled on the couch and the lingering air of unspoken affection between them. Moments like these were worth treasuring. Moments like these were magical. Moments like these would soon come to end. 

Allura’s voice whipped the two teens out of their love struck trance. “Attention paladins. We have entered the Milky Way galaxy. Earth is our next and final destination.” She sounded cheerful, excited and chipper. Just like usual. Keith would miss her ever present radiant personality. 

Lance looked back to Keith, a new sparkle in his eyes and a smile even wider than before. His excitement fell when his eyes rested on Keith’s features. Keith's eyes turned down, much like his sullen frown. His fingers trembled as they were intertwined with Lance’s. Lance had trouble placing the emotion. Was it anger? Frustration? Sadness? Maybe even fear? It could have been any, or maybe a mix of each. But whatever it was, Lance could say with confidence he didn’t like it. He didn’t like seeing Keith so upset, eyes so focused and yet so empty. “Keith, buddy, what’s wrong?” He asked, a comforting hand resting itself on Keith’s shoulder. 

Keith sighed, looking away, down to the clean white tiled floor and noting his distorted reflection staring back at him. Damn, these floors really were clean. Lance had asked him question; it took him a moment to process. And once it was processed, it took him even longer to decide how to reply. He could force a bright smile, one like Lance always wore. He could ensure Lance that everything was fine and they could go back to the moments of useless touches and pointless kisses. Or, he could tell the truth. He could admit that the Earth, their home, now seemed foreign to him. He could admit that he would miss the silence of space, the vast expanse of the universe. Going back to Earth just seemed so so small now. He could say he’s worried about the dynamics of their relationship. He could confessed that nothing would be as it was. Voltron made everything okay. 

Instead, he gauged the waters, dropping a line to Lance and hoping he took the bait. “Lance, you were the first paladin,” he huffed out a laugh.

Thankfully, Lance took, “We never would have found Blue if it wasn’t for you. And if we never found Blue, we never would have been taken to Arus and we never would have found the rest of them. We never would have formed Voltron, or saved the universe. Isn’t it funny how things work out.” He drew out a laugh of his own. Though it wasn’t his usual hearty chuckle; it was much more bashful, more careful.

Keith leaned in and burrowed his head into the crook of Lance’s neck. “I can’t believe it’s really over. Everything on Earth is going to seem so… so” he stammered, fighting back a wave of watery emotion threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes. What was he even trying to say? Boring? Pointless? Different? Struggling to find the right word, he abandoned the sentence altogether, letting out a sigh and grabbing a handful on Lance’s jacket. 

Despite the sentence never coming to a definitive end, Lance understood rather well what Keith was trying to say. “I can’t imagine anything will be as exciting as fighting Zarkon. And nothing will be the same as piloting Blue. But we’ll still have each other, right?” Lance smiled.

“Will we?” Keith nearly raised his voice. He pulled away from Lance, putting a good foot of space between them. “Back on Earth, you hated me. For what reason, I’ll never understand. Back on Earth, I lived by myself. Do you know what it feels like to have no one? To spend day after day in complete silence. To have absolutely no friends, no family. Nothing.” He paused to catch his breath, eyes frantically wandering from his balled up fists, to the floor, to Lance’s confused face. “When we go back to Earth, everything will just go back to normal. Because this,” he motioned between himself and Lance, “this only happened because we’ve been stuck up here in space. On Earth, you have your life and I have mine. And they weren’t meant to cross one another.”  

So that emotion Keith had been feeling, Lance finally found a word to describe it - doubt. Cautiously, he reached out to Keith, extending to him an open palm and a gentle smile. “Keith, love, you’re not serious right now, are you?” He almost sounded heartbroken, “You seriously think that I’m only dating you because you’re around. Because we’ve been trapped on this ship together. You think that when we get back to Earth, I’m just going to drop you, leave you out in the desert to fend for yourself.” A tear fell from Lance’s eye and it was Keith’s turn to feel heartbroken, “It’s like you haven’t learned anything about me in all this time. You listen to me, Keith Kogane, I love you. And this ship, and voltron, and the lions have nothing to do with that. I don’t love you because you’re here. I love you because you’re you.”

As much as he wanted to believe Lance, and believe that everything would be the same back on Earth, he couldn’t. He grabbed Lance’s hand, squeezing it unusually tight in his own. “For now, I can really only hope that you’re right.” It was hard for him to look at the hurt in Lance’s eyes, “Lance, I’m afraid of being back on Earth.” It was even harder for him to admit such a weakness out loud.

Lance squeezed Keith’s hand back comfortingly, reassuringly, lovingly. “You’ve always been so excited about this mission, so hell bent on saving the universe. So desperate to stay here in space. I’d often wondered why you never felt homesick, why you never really talked about Earth. Was it always because you’ve been afraid. How long have you been afraid of going home?” He asked in a low tone, barely above a whisper. Carding through Keith’s silky black hair, Lance begged to understand. He longed to be able to help. 

“I have a purpose here. I have a reason to live here. I have…” He bit his bottom lip, taking a long pause to consider actually finishing that sentence. In the end, he does; because he’s already exposed himself to the vulnerability, so why stop now. Though, he had a difficult time trying to prevent the growing blush in his pale cheeks, “I have you, pretty much all to myself. Everything is just so perfect up here. Don’t you see it that way?” It confused Keith, how Lance had always seemed to downplay the benefits of being a paladin of Voltron, seemed to take this grand opportunity to explore far beyond their own galaxy for granted. 

“I do see it that way, Keith. Of course I recognized the importance of the mission. And no matter how many times I missed my family or anything, I never once actually thought about abandoning the team. I loved being up here. I loved every bit of it. And I know once I get off this ship, I’ll miss things about it, too. Who knows, I might even start to get weird cravings for food goo.” He chuckled, “But Earth was a warm, loving home to me. I know it was a cold and lonely place for you. But you’re not the same as you were when we got on this ship. And you’ll walk off this ship with at least four new good friends, and maybe Earth won’t seem so lonely.”

Keith looked to respond, but the turbulence of entering Earth’s atmosphere shook them both from their seats. Out the wide window, Lance could see the white clouds and blue water. And as they got closer, he could see the mountain range where they found Blue so long ago. They would end up exactly where they started, like waking up and realizing everything was just a dream. But they all knew the truth. None of this was a dream. Everything was real.

The ship landed in the middle of the empty desert. Allura called all the paladins into the control room for one final debriefing session before she left them on their way. “Alright paladins. We’ve made it to Earth.” She smiled. “You are free to go about your lives. But please remember one thing. You are all paladins of voltron, saviors of the universe. And should another tyrant rise to power and start enslaving innocent planets, I’ll be back in a tick to collect you.” She warned, handing them each their plated armor. “Now go on, enjoy your lives back on Earth.” The castle doors opened and the seven earthlings stepped outside, blinded by the intensity of their sun. Once they were off, the castle took off and flew back into outer space. 

Keith sighed, looking at his paladin armor. That was it. They were back on Earth.  

**Author's Note:**

> I might write more for this AU later on. But I haven't decided yet. If I do, I'll probably make it a series rather than a multi-chapter. Just Keith and Lance and everyone readjusting to life on Earth; pointless, plotless drabble things that would just be super cute and moderately angsty. We shall see. 
> 
> You should totally go follow me on [ tumblr ](http://animezing-life.tumblr.com/) Because sometimes I draw Voltron things!
> 
> Kudos, Comments, and Criticisms are always welcome!


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